The Peregrine Omnibus, Volume Two (91 page)

The Peregrine’s mind turned back to the events of 1936, when he and a small group of allies had foiled a vampire plot to fulfill a prophecy concerning the enslavement of the human race. “I would ask for your name,” The Peregrine said with a cold smile. “But there’s not really any point. You’re going to be dust in a few minutes anyway.”

The woman hissed like a cat, baring her fangs and her male companions took that as their cue to attack. The nearest of the two, the longhaired man, lunged for Max’s throat with outstretched hands. The Peregrine swung his blade, cutting off several of the vampire’s fingers. The mystic weapon causing burning pain in its victim and the vampire howled, staring at his smoking stumps in shock.

The Peregrine meanwhile had spun towards the short-cropped vampire. He fired three times, each bullet piercing the monster’s head and face. The vampire staggered with each impact, blood gushing from his wounds. It fell to the floor, twitching like a fish out of water.

The other male vampire had recovered by this time and he crashed into The Peregrine, slamming the vigilante against the side of one of the coffins. Max felt a sharp pain in his hip and he gritted his teeth, striking back with the Knife of Elohim. The blade caught in the vampire’s belly and The Peregrine gave it a cruel twist before sawing up and down quickly. The vampire’s open mouth, only inches away from The Peregrine’s neck, opened and closed, the lips twisting in agony. The Peregrine had the monster pinned on the blade now and Max finished him off by raising his gun, placing the barrel between the vampire’s eyes, and pulling the trigger.

The Peregrine shoved away the corpse, which lay unmoving next to his fallen companion. Both would need to be finished off with stakes, their bodies subsequently burned. The Peregrine had learned the hard way that even bullets to the brain weren’t enough to prevent resurrections in the future.

The female vampire stood in the shadows, barely visible in the darkness of the hold. Outside, Max knew that late afternoon had begun to give way to early evening, making her strength all the greater. “Why do you hunt us, Max Davies?”

“Because you kill innocent people.”

“We do what comes naturally to us. Do you hate the lion for taking down the gazelle? We thin the herd of humanity. We do you a favor as a species, removing the weak and the sick.”

“Let’s not play games. You aren’t going around putting the infirm out of their misery. You’re hunting and killing people who are in the prime of life, stealing away parents and children from those who love them.”

The woman took a step out into the light, her beauty fading quickly as her face twisted, becoming more animalistic and bloodthirsty. “They day you die will be a happy one in Hell, Max Davies. There are so many like me who will be waiting to greet you with open arms.”

“What makes you think I’ll be in Hell?”

“We both know that’s where you’ll be. You think God wants you to dress up in a mask and act as judge, jury and executioner? You elevate yourself into His position, ruling on what is moral and just. He will condemn you to an eternity of suffering!”

The vampire’s head suddenly exploded in a mass of bone and red tissue. The sound of a gun firing from the direction of the stairs caused The Peregrine to drop into a crouch, spinning around to point his pistol at the source.

Evelyn was standing there in khaki slacks and a white button-up shirt. Her auburn hair fell in ringlets around her shoulders and there was a mischievous smirk on her face. “Did I give you a fright?” she asked.

“I thought you were staying out of this,” he said, standing up and holstering his gun. The Knife of Elohim he slid into a protective leather casing, strapped to his left hip.

“I’m sorry, Max. Did I ruin your fun?” Evelyn sauntered over, ignoring the ruined vampire bodies on the floor. Before she’d met Max, she never would have thought herself capable of blowing someone’s head off with a gun… but in the seven years they’d known one another, she’d been at his side for more weirdness than she could ever hope to catalog.

The Peregrine placed an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. They kissed there in the hold, the smell of rotting flesh and spent bullet shells hanging in the air. They’d been in worse smelling places. “Thanks for the assist, honey.”

“No problem. Some of the crew heard the gunfire but they all did just as the Captain asked: not a one of them came down here to help.”

“They would have been in the way.”

“Right-o. But I assumed I’d be able to help out if needed… or I’d stay in the shadows and never make a peep.”

“How long have you been down here?”

“I stepped in around the time you were stabbing that one in the gut.”

“I bet that was a lovely scene.”

“Very charming.” Evelyn pulled away and cast a glance around their surroundings. “So what now?”

“We stake them and then we dump their ashes overboard.”

“I’m not usually very domestic but I can help you clean up if you want.”

“I’d love the company,” Max said and he meant it. Evelyn was far more than his lover or even the mother of his son. She was his partner and his confidante, as essential to the success of The Peregrine’s mission as Max himself.

The grisly work was soon complete and Max took his wife’s hand as they began to leave the hold. “Sorry for not sticking to my promise. I swore this would be one trip where I wouldn’t wear the mask at all.”

“It’s okay, Max. I knew who and what you were when I married you. It’s just like my acting career—you know that sometimes I have to be away for a while.”

Max knew what she meant. When they’d first met, Evelyn had been a stage actress but she’d soon graduated to B-Movies. As a result of this, she was sometimes off in California for weeks at a time, leaving Max to tend to the house and family.

It all made for an interesting arrangement but it was one that worked for them. As they stepped up onto the deck, the moon now beginning to peek out from behind the clouds, Max felt a pounding begin just behind his eyes. His vision swam and he released his grip on his wife’s hand so that he could rush forward to lean against the rail.

“Max…?” Evelyn asked, though she recognized the signs of what was happening. Not long after witnessing the death of his father, Max had begun experiencing painful visions of the future. These visions usually centered on violent crimes of some sort and often took the form of enigmatic glimpses of potential events, rather than hard-and-fast depictions of what lay ahead. The knowledge that these visions came from his dead father did little to lessen the pain they induced.

Evelyn approached cautiously, knowing her husband was lost in a world she could not see. She tentatively reached out for his shoulder but he jerked away from her.

In his mind’s eye, The Peregrine was witnessing a number of things that made little sense to him, but which nevertheless filled him with dread:

He saw a man with bronze skin and blue eyes wearing a parka, trudging through the snow towards a strange emerald dome.

He witnessed himself being tortured by three women, all of them beautiful but cruel.

And he saw a wave of pure light washing over Washington, D.C., destroying everything in its path. He saw the White House reduced to cinders while the Lincoln Memorial was annihilated from the face of the Earth.

When his vision cleared and he was once more aware of his surroundings, Max turned his head and saw Evelyn watching him with obvious fear in her eyes. “It’s okay. I’m okay,” he said, though his voice shook a bit as he spoke.

“What did you see?”

The Peregrine reached up and removed the mask from his face. He dropped it into the pocket of his coat and began rubbing his temples with both hands. He summarized what he’d seen but the words did little convey the horror of the images. It was always this way: no matter how he might try, he could never make someone else understand what it was like to witness destruction on such a massive scale. Thankfully, he’d been able to prevent most of the predicted disasters from occurring… but eventually, he was bound to slip up and fail. That thought kept him up at nights.

“You didn’t get any idea who was behind it all? Was it those girls? Or the man with the blue eyes?”

“I didn’t see those women and the man together. But I do get the sense that there’s some connection between them. I wish these visions were clearer!” The Peregrine slammed his fist down on top of the railing and stared out over the water. “I have no idea who they are or where to find them. I don’t know when the attack on Washington might come or how to stop it. Sometimes these things seem more like taunts than anything else, like my father is daring me to stop these crimes.”

“You know that’s not the case. Your father was… is… many things but one thing you know is that he wants to see criminals punished.”

“Yes. Even if it means torturing his son and turning him into an instrument for his vengeance.” Max couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. He shook his head. “Enough self-pity. I’ve got work to do when we get back home. I have to stop those things from happening.”

“Well, you know I’ll do anything I can to help. And you have friends you can call on.”

The Peregrine knew whom she was talking about. In recent years, he’d undertaken adventures with a wide variety of fellow heroes: the Russian superman Leonid Kaslov, the mysterious Black Bat, the supernatural detective Ascott Keane and the Domino Lady
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. All of them would do whatever they could to assist him if he gave them a call… but he would hold off on that as much as possible. They all had their own problems and their own lives.

Evelyn squeezed her husband’s hand. “You’ll save the day,” she said with a smile. “You always do.”

“I hope you’re right, Evelyn. Because the things I saw… I have a feeling that the entire world could be in danger if I don’t.”

Sun Koh—Man of Destiny

CHAPTER III

The Daughter of Kali

Sun Koh lay awake, nestled in amongst warm female flesh. He was onboard the zeppelin, which was flying towards Europe. The Furies were all nude and covered with a fine sheen of sweat, their breathing deep and rhythmic. Sun Koh had exhausted them with his sexual prowess and they had fallen into a deep slumber immediately afterwards. This left Sun Koh in peace, allowing him to think things through.

Käthe lay with her head upon Sun Koh’s chest, a faint smile on her lips. Akemi was on the other side, her cheek resting on The Man of Destiny’s taut belly. Imelda was on the far edge of the bed, spooning with Käthe. All three women had been ardent lovers but Sun Koh had maintained a cool distance, even during the more intimate moments of their relations. Sun Koh knew all the ways to please a woman even though he regarded most of them as being lesser than a man and thus unworthy of his full attention. An Aryan woman was far above the men of the lesser races… but they were just as far below an Aryan man. Even a woman like Käthe, whose intelligence and skill were beyond reproach, would have better suited for her natural role: that of a mother, bringing new life into the world.

Only one woman had ever truly deserved equality with the men around her. Unfortunately, Sun Koh wasn’t sure if she still lived. Of all his aides, she was the only one who hadn’t accompanied him on his ill-fated return to Atlantis. All the others were now dead… but his beloved Ashanti might yet be out there somewhere, awaiting his return.

Ashanti Garuda, whose named translated as “The Daughter of Kali,” was Sun Koh’s mistress and his trusted assassin. Sun Koh had generally called her Shani, a pet name that no one else would have dared used. A true Aryan born and raised in India, Shani was a wondrous human being, defying the limitations of her gender. She had mastered alchemy, sorcery, Yoga, Siddha medicine, Kalaripayit and too many other Indian mystical arts to count. Thanks to Elixir of Life that she routinely drank, she was perpetually young and beautiful. Sun Koh had no idea how old she truly was but her skin was also smooth and firm, her curves defying gravity in an enticing manner. A devotee of Kali, she had been gifted with the powers of pacifying, paralyzing, subjugating, obstructing, driving away and death dealing. She accomplished all these things with the temple that was her body, mastering all the pressure points that could be used to render men helpless, be it from pain or pleasure.

Her body, the dimensions of which Sun Koh could recall with perfect clarity, had been the canvas that displayed her devotion to Kali. In the center of her red tikala mark on her forehead was a tiny golden Swastika. Twelve more Swastikas adorned the rest of her body, located on the soles of her feet, the palms of her hands, the inside of her thighs, the inner portion of her arms on the outsides of her buttocks and the sides of her breasts. Sun Koh had traced them all with his hands and mouth.

The Atlantean slide from the bed, careful not to rouse The Furies. He found a robe that had been set aside for him and he slipped it on, cinching the belt in front. The hum of the engines was steady and consistent beneath his feet. He left the women’s quarters and moved quietly through the zeppelin’s hallways, finally entering the bridge. There were only four people present—three men who were studying gauges and charts and Captain Mueller.